Pre-Columbian, South Coast of Peru, Nazca culture, ca. 300 to 500 CE. Large and amusing pottery bridge-spouted vessel in the form of a shaman intertwined with 12 snakes. On his lap are 4 snakes in shades of yellow and deep brick red. His hair morphs into 8 additional serpents, some with tongue exposed, others without. In a somewhat ironic way the faces of the snakes take on an appearance of trophy heads, the tongue interpreted as the strings used to sew the mouth shut of the poor, now bodyless, victim. Size: 4.75" W x 7.75" H (12.1 cm x 19.7 cm)

This style of painting corresponds to later Nazca styles, when supernatural figures became the center of the artists' attention and their more fantastical elements are exaggerated over their human ones. Nazca pots were made using the coil and smoothing technique, never molded; their wide range of polychrome slips included pigments made with minerals like hematite, limonite, and magnetite, as well as white kaolin clay. Colored portions of the vessel were painted with brushes made from llama and alpaca fur, and then given black outlines. The Nazca replaced post-firing resin painting with pre-firing slip painting making for a great deal of experimentation to learn which slips produced certain colors. Note the painstaking technique required to adorn this vessel with its intricate figural imagery in such a wide range of hues!

Provenance: private Ferndale, Michigan, USA collection; ex-private Detroit, Michigan, USA collection, acquired prior to 2004

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#182567

Chip to spout, minor pigment wear, mineral deposits.